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Red taquería-style salsa

For awhile now, I’ve liked green salsa more than red. Green was always brighter, more acidic. A drizzle on my taco set off sparks on my tongue. And when the salsa had avocado, as green taquería salsas often do here, I wanted to curl up and take a nap in its creaminess.

Red salsa never hit me that way. It wasn’t luxurious or intense. Red salsa just sat there. Blinking. (Little did I know red salsa doesn’t work like that. It plants a seed, and then hurries away to see what you do with it.)

In the past few months, whenever I’d visit taquerías, I’d find myself looking at the red more than the green. I already knew what the green contained: chile serrano or chile verde, maybe chile de árbol or an avocado. But the red remained an enigma. Did the taquero use tomatoes? They’re not essential. Which chiles did he use? Guajillo, cascabel, mora? There were no acidic tomatillos to mask everything. With red salsa, you tasted the chiles themselves. The result was subtler, more mysterious.

This salsa contained a few tomatoes, pureed with toasted chiles until they became a thick, deep-red soup. (In another time five thousand years ago, maybe I could’ve dyed my hair with this stuff.) One bite murmured of garlic and the piney herbs of the guajillo. Then came the searing heat — like, straddling the line of edible — from the 8 chiles de árbol I used. Heat is the main difference between a table salsa and one you’d cook meat and vegetables in, by the way. The former, if you like spicy food, should be tongue-swellingly hot.

Seven days later, I still have a glass jar of this salsa in my fridge. I’ve slowly been working my way through it, spooning it into quesadillas, on chips, over eggs. It’s fabulous on anything.

Recipe below. Oh, and tell me — where do you come down on the fence? Red or green, and why?

Toast the chiles briefly on a comal over medium heat. You’ll only want to do this for a few seconds, until they get slightly softer and aromatic. Try not to blacken them — black spots add a bitter flavor. Remove the chiles to a bowl and cover them with hot water. Let them sit for about 20 minutes, until softened.

In the meantime, raise the heat slightly on the comal and toast the tomatoes on all sides, until soft and blackened in spots. (It’s okay to char the tomatoes, just not the chiles!)

Add the chiles, tomatoes, garlic and water to a blender, and pulse until smooth. Add salt — I used about a teaspoon — and pulse some more. Don’t forget that salt is really important in a salsa, so if it doesn’t taste right, chances are you need more of it.

Lesley,
Not a comment more a plea for help.
I have a severe allergy to tree nuts and pea nuts.
On my first trip to Mexico 38 years ago I was poisoned fairly regularly. Never the less, I love the variety of food offerings always looking for new experiences.
I employ some basic Spanish language skills but am pretty rusty.Even at that I occasionally experience life threatening culinary episodes.
Can you suggest foods I should definitely avoid and also a polite way of communicating, in Spanish, my need to Not ingest nuts to restaurant staff and vendors?
We ‘ll be in Merida, Yucatan and area in Feb.

Hi Ron: If you can’t eat any type of nuts, you should stay away from mole sauces — they generally contain peanuts, and often pumpkin seeds as well. (Although you may be able to eat pumpkin seeds.) I’d also ask the staff, if you’re putting salsa on your tacos, whether the salsa contains peanuts. Sometimes in Mexico City, they do. The phrase would be — “Tiene cacahuates?” You can also say, so they understand the gravity of the situation, “No puedo comer cacahuates, nueces o almendras. Tengo alergias.” (Translated to: “I can’t eat peanuts, pecans or almonds. I have allergies.”) Walnuts and hazelnuts, translated to “nuez de castilla” and “avellana,” aren’t used very much during the winter season. If you happen to find yourself in front of a chile en nogada (not too common in the Yucatán, but you never know), don’t eat that either. The sauce contains walnuts. If you can indeed eat pumpkin seeds, but nothing else, I’d tell the restaurant staff, “Sólo puedo comer pepitas, pero ningún otro tipo de nuez. Tengo alergias.” That’s really all you can do. Good luck!

I’m red and green, depending on the food to be consumed. I make my red salsa with about 5 chile morita and 25 chile arbol, plus some tomatillos, cebolla, ajo. It comes out quite spicy but perfect on my veggie tacos with a deep red color.

Yep, the guajillos are dried, not fresh. (We actually don’t eat fresh guajillos in Mexican cooking.) As a general rule, most of the red table salsas in Mexico contain dried chiles. The only fresh chiles we use in table salsas are serrano, jalapeño and habanero. And by table salsas I mean a bowl that sits on the table, meant to be drizzled on top of things — this is opposed to a salsa you’d stew with meat.

If you’re ever perusing recipes and wondering whether the chile is fresh or dried, if it is a red chile in table salsa (and it’s not a jalapeño), chances are it’s dried. Hope that helps!

THANK YOU! I’ve been looking for a guide to this salsa for a long, long time. We have a craving for chilaquiles this weekend, but I couldn’t make up my mind if I wanted red or green salsa, so I made both (green salsa is still simmering down). I used this recipe for the red and it is FANTASTIC. Thank you for sharing this.

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Who is Mija?

Mija is Lesley Téllez, a food writer and culinary guide in New York City. I lived in Mexico City for four years, which launched my deep love for Mexican food and culture. I currently run the tourism company Eat Mexico and am writing a cookbook about Mexico City's street, market and fonda food.